Tlacoyos and Eggheads August 14, 2021
The gentleman that prepares my delicious blue Tlacoyos claims that his is the only Tlacoyería in town, since the stuffed corn-patties, covered with nopal and salsa, are not well known this far south. While he can expound at length on the intricacies of Mexican regional cuisines, the man’s formal training is in sociology, and it is here that I am happy to be served by an eloquent professor of Chiapaneco social history.
The ’70’s and 80’s were times of radical change among the indigenous people, as the Maya communitarian way of life attracted the curious, from European documentarians to Harvard anthropologists and others. While these new arrivals hardly constituted “first contact” with an intact native society, there nonetheless was introduced all sorts of new post-Columbian ideas from academic activists, including the evils of colonialism, capitalism and the coming globalization. The seeds were being sown for the birth of the Zapatista Uprising, in 1994.
Harvard may have played an outsized contributing role in the social change, indeed the fraying of the native fabric, as there is evidence to suggest that scholars in the Cambridge LDS Ward made use of these Harvard Chiapaneco ethnographies to devise a Mormon conversion campaign for the Tzotzil and other Maya groups, learning the languages, the kinship systems, customs, convictions, and economy.
And then the Mormons did their bidding to slyly introduce a new American brand of Christianity, which came with free goods and services—clothes and food for the family, as well as promises of more riches to come, in accordance with established prosperity gospel—and all for the cost of only 10% of one’s yearly income, which, among the Tzotzil, is 10% of virtually nothing. And while there were other Protestants making inroads during this period among the indigenous populations—Pentecostals and Evangelicals, especially—the Mormons were arguably the most successful. In a way, they were the most destructive as well, for the Mormon doctrine would prohibit members from drinking the sacred Pox, as well as participating in marriage rites and other communal activities. In short, Los Cristianos, which is how the Catholics refer to Protestants of any stripe, succeeded in disrupting family dynamics and threatening societal cohesion. And so Los Católicos invited them to leave.
In San Juan Chamúla, Protestants were literally kicked out of town, breaking up families, forcing broader schisms, and creating new and isolated townships, like Betania and Belén Nueva, in the remote hills. The subsequent cultural upheaval is still being tallied, but for Tzotzil and her Maya siblings, the siege that culminated in the multifaceted events of 1994 continues today. The outsiders visited this society and found much to admire, so much that they stayed and accelerated the change. If there is one lasting benefit, it may be that Chiapanecos, having been infected and fairly ravaged by the effects of religious conversion, are now effectively immune to the American missionaries. Indeed, and quite remarkably, I have not seen one missionary yet in San Cristóbal, a city of 200,000. Not even a single Jehova’s Witness brochure kiosk in the plazas. Perhaps the Yanquis have learned what the natives do with Los Cristianos in these parts.
The blue-elote Tlacoyos are excellent, as always, and El Professor is more than willing to cook more, or to elaborate on academia’s many other sins in Chiapas, which apparently includes the unethical testing of birth control pills in the 1960’s. However, clouds are descending from the hills, and rain is imminent. Despite the ominous skies, or maybe because of them, the explosives-deacons at nearby Santo Domingo launch a barrage of thunderous shells. This will surely draw a response from the Franciscans in Santa Lucia, thus sustaining a Catholic ritual that is even older and more revered than Harvard University.